16″ at 228x: N74 West is a fairly bright, large glow, ~5′ x 2.5′ elongated E-W. It’s a very irregular shape – it tapers at its eastern end and billows out on its western end. Its edges fade quite rapidly into the surrounding sky. The stars of OB association, LH 116, lie scattered across the glow, including a number of mag 14 stars and lovely white mag 10.2, HD 270111 lying on its southern side. The mag 14.5 Wolf-Rayet star, Brey 98, lies just to its west. The cluster SL 697 lies on the nebula’s northwest periphery and appears as a small, fairly bright glow, irregular, no resolution. HS 404 is an exceedingly faint and small smudge, just barely visible. The nebula has a great response to the UHC filter! Bright, uneven and patchy, and its edges are quite clear as they fade rapidly. N74A appears as a bright, small little droplet of light. N74B appears as a faint, and exceedingly thin and short E-W streak. (Mag 11.9 BAT99 133 = LHA 120-S 61 lies south of the southeastern end of the nebula. It’s not connected to the nebula but worth a look if you’d like to see another Wolf-Rayet star.)

16″ at 228x + UHC filter: There seems to be no nebulosity connecting N74W to N74E which lies ~9′ ESE. Although N74 east is smaller than N74 west, it is still relatively large and quite bright. It is ~2′ x 1′ in size with a very faint nebulous filament that curves off the south end towards the SE but it fades rapidly. A few small stars stud the nebulosity on its northern side. N74 east harbours a rare Wolf-Rayet bubble! The Wolf-Rayet star responsible for the bubble is mag 14.5 Brey 100. Lovely star! The bubble appears as a beautiful, fairly long, faintish arc on the southern side. On both ends of the arc the nebulosity sweeps around in a clearly oval-type direction, but they fade away rapidly. The arc is very gauzy and gossamer with no defined edges at all, except for a slightly brighter and slightly defined smudge on its southeastern edge. A bright-ish and elegant filament that sweeps off to the southeast from its southern side is quite a scene-stealer.